2004 Presidential election

[quantus]

Jonathan and Peijen and all of you living in Virginia need to get out and make more democrats in your states vote.

[George]

Also, polls show Kerry/Edwards with a respectable lead.

http://www.pollingreport.com/wh04gen.htm

What's more, breaking the polls down by state yields an electoral college victory for Kerry/Edwards, though many states are too close to call.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

The real test will be the Republican national convention. If Kerry can hang onto the lead after that, I predict fairly smooth cruising.

I disagree. These are the same kind of polls that told us Dean's victory in the Democratic primaries was a given. Right now, I still predict a Bush victory.

I see Kerry winning in one of three scenarios:
1) A single event in Iraq causes massive American casualties. One, two, or ten American casualties a day is just background noise to most voters. Only a real shock would make any of the people who still support the war change their minds.
2) Job growth remains stagnant, and doesn't pick up even once between now and November. The average voter doesn't understand macroeconomics well enough to see that Bush's policies are stupid. Worse, any uptick in the economy can be claimed as a recovery and many voters will believe it. Only when fear for their jobs becomes stronger than their fear of the terrorists will voters jump ship to Kerry.
3) Bush or a large number of his key advisors are involved in a major scandal in late October that resists their efforts to spin it. Any earlier and voters would forget by election day. It couln't be any of these Michael Moore connect-the-dots type scandals either. It would have to be something both indisputable and abhorant to their core voting block like being caught in the middle of gay sex, openly converting to Islam, or discovery of a detention center full of white Christians held and tortured secretly under the Patriot Act. I suspect Bush could weather a heterosexual affair, another Halliburton thing, or just about anything else.

However, there are many more probable events that would pretty much guarantee a Bush victory. A terrorist attack of any scale on US soil, successful bribery of a single Diebolt software engineer, or continued job growth (even if confined to the fast food sector).

[Jonathan]

http://waxy.org/random/video/Daily_Show_-_John_Kerry_Interview.mov

[quantus]

And with the turn of Florida http://www.electoral-vote.com/aug/aug26.html shows Kerry winning with a much more marginal lead...

[quantus]

http://www.eet.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=31600006

IEEE poll of engineers and who they'll vote for. Sadly, the majority are in favor of Bush.

[quantus]

And there goes Iowa, Missouri, and Pennsylvania... http://www.electoral-vote.com/sep/sep03.html

[skanks]

And here comes Iowa, Missouri, and Pennsylvania:

http://www.electoral-vote.com/sep/sep08.html

so much for Bush's bounce. And tonight we have 60 minutes interviewing the Former Lt. Governor of Texas who personally got Bush his cush slot in the Texas Air National Guard. And we passed the 1000 dead soldier mark which is bound to shed a little light on the fact that we're going nowhere in Iraq and we've conceeded vast swathes of Iraq to insurgent forces. And the economy is still slumping. The only good news Bush has is that the bad news is so numerous and divergent that it makes it hard for any particularly bad item to dominate the news cycle.

[quantus]

If Kerry can win PA and FL, then he's got it made. MO would be nice too

[Dave]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FI10Aa01.html

heh, seems like the mentailty "Kerry who? Anyone but Bush"

[Alan]

Anyone know how I go about getting an absentee ballot? I want to vote in a state where my vote might actually make a difference (ie PA).

[Jonathan]

It's handled per state. Better do it now rather than later. Georgia had this ridiculous 5 weeks before the election deadline so I didn't vote last election. Google for Pennsylvania absentee ballot. There's probably a web site with a form to fill out so they will mail you your ballot.

Georgia voting sucks in all ways, by the way.

Anyhow, here's a thought: electoral college tie! The polls work out such that this is a distinct possibility. The newly elected House would determine the winner by a vote of states. That, of course, is almost guaranteed to install Bush in the presidency again, but you never know. I pretty much blame California and New York for not dividing into 72 tiny individual states.

http://shapeofdays.typepad.com/the_shap ... ase_s.html

[George]

I submitted my registration when I got my driver's license, but apparently they never processed it. I finally got fed up waiting this year and submitted it again. This time, they at least acknowleged that I registered, but said I had submitted too close to the primary. At least I'm registered now so I can vote in the one race I know anything about.

[Jonathan]

Here's another thought, which George has expressed before, now expressed in concrete terms: polls are worthless. The reasons, according to the link, are that unlikely voters may be more likely to vote this year plus pollsters cannot contact people with cell phones.

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonia ... 259060.xml

[Alan]

Applications for the ballot must be received by the Department of Elections no earlier than 50 days before the election, and no later than 7 days before the election.

So I guess I have some time. Heh.

[skanks]

thoughts?

[Jonathan]

Didn't watch it.

[skanks]

so, while I watching the debates I really wanted Kerry to be much more aggressive. I almost couldn't believe it when he wasted thirty seconds of his opening shot to thank the sponsers and hosts of the debate. But Kerry was very calm and collected. His rebuttals to Bush's accusations were not as detailed as they could have been, but on the flip side Kerry stuck to the point: Bush's failed policies. Meanwhile, Bush repeated attack lines failed on the defensive as he seemed ever more hollow, especially as he was unable to defend himself against the most basic allegations. Bush's presentation was hardly a step up from his normal press conference appearances. He tried to bully his way through rebuttals with arrogance, condescention, simplification, and evasion. When Kerry spoke the numerous expressions on Bush's face belied a simple and angry man who cannot stand being challanged. As a undgergrad hottie from the University of Pittsburgh noted today on the bus: "Bush just seemed, like, dumb". In the end, Kerry's cool, collected, and focused presentation (and the juxtaposition of his confident note-taking while Bush talked) clearly showed "Presidential" grade material.

[Alan]

I think Kerry did as well as he needed to do. He presented himself as someone who could be President, but he didn't blow Bush away or anything like that. Kerry was good, not great. Bush's perceived strength is national security, and I think Kerry did enough to show that he wouldn't be weak on that. Bush failed to pin Kerry down last night, and if he had, this election would've been over.

Bush was horrible, but we already knew that he's a horrible debater. He repeated the stuff that everyone has already heard him say; the sad thing is, that might be good enough to win him the election. Kerry needs to absolutely crush Bush when they debate about domestic issues. Kerry needs to not only make it clear that his policies are far better than Bush's when it comes to jobs, healthcare, and the economy; but he also needs to make it clear that Bush hasn't got the slightest clue when it comes to those issues. If he can do both those things, he'll win. Now if they repeat their performances at the next two debates, I think Bush has enough to win in November.

[skanks]

I think Alan's analysis is right. But I also think that there are several reasons why we can expect Kerry to be stronger in this next debate.

1) Kerry has the hometeam advantage for domestic issues. Democrats trust him more on economic and social issues. Kerry has actual health care proposals. Bush proposals can easily be picked apart. Bush's record on domestic issues is both clear and shitty: Jobs lost, Healthcare lost, stagnant wages, rising costs of education. Bush's only rock to stand on is the pork-laden medicare drug benefit.

2) Since Kerry has the prior issue advantage, he can be much more on the attack.

3) Kerry demonstrated that he can control the framing of the debate. If Bush doesn't control the context, he suffers immensely.

4) Kerry is a quick learner. He'll see the weaknesses and the lost opportunities in his last debate and he'll come out stronger. Bush is learning-impaired. His handlers will probably manage to rectify his huffy and peevish demeanor, but his failure in the first debate suggests that, as expected, he has some serious intrinsic problems verbalizing himself.

5) Kerry has the momentum.

[Jason]

On CNN last night, they mentioned that the winner of the first debate for the last four elections didn't win the presidency.